


Torn

by TheLateNightStoryTeller



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Trust Issues, just right after, mostly angst, probably hit the rating too high lol but just in case, sad Cosima, sleepy Cosima, they talk about sex but the actual sex isn't in the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 22:48:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLateNightStoryTeller/pseuds/TheLateNightStoryTeller
Summary: A short moment between Cosima and Delphine just after 1x10. Cosima thinks about patents and death and how much she can trust Delphine.





	Torn

It’s like falling back into her body again, as she waits for the blood to stop roaring past her ears. With each heartbeat, she’s more aware of herself. The smooth sheet underneath her back, Delphine’s arm warm across her stomach, her foot brushing against the side of her leg, their breaths like waves crashing into each other, the scent of smoke from the candles.

She turns her head, nudging her nose against Delphine’s, whose short chuckle starts a round of giggles between them. It’s always different, everyone is different, but this is something else. She wants to stretch this moment as long as she can, stay here where nothing else matters but the two of them and everything is made of gold.

“It was better then?” Delphine asks. Her voice is steady but it has a subtle tone Cosima can’t find a word for that betrays her apprehension.

Cosima reaches out to gently lay a hand on the other woman’s cheek, feeling what she can’t see half blind in the dark. The shape of her face is already familiar and her thumb traces a trail across her skin as if she’s always known it. She wants the smile back, the laughter that fades so abruptly. Not this undeserved insecurity.

 “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You were upset,” Delphine says quietly. Guilty.

 _I’m still upset._ But she doesn’t want to talk about that. _I don’t care how experienced you are though. It wasn’t about the sex._

Delphine’s arm tightens around her, her fingers painting slowly over her ribs and Cosima closes her eyes, trying to spin the straw back into gold.

 “I didn’t know about the patent,” Delphine says softly.

She sighs, giving into the inevitable conversation. “I know.”

Her words are a whisper, a single breath, and her heart jumps when she feels them catch in her throat. She swallows hard, trying to clear it, still remembering the taste of blood.

_I don’t want to die._

The words jump out at her, pre-emptive, but she can’t help skipping ahead. She’s always been ahead, fast-forwarding through her thoughts so that she has to slow them down for everyone else to keep up, and the place she’s running to now leaves her terrified.

She pushes her face into Delphine’s shoulder, trying to lose herself in her scent, her words muffled against her skin. “We belong to them, Delphine.”

 Maybe she should be afraid of her too, but she can’t bring herself to be. Instead the other woman feels like a lifeboat. She knows she shouldn’t trust her, but she wants to more than anything. Delphine’s arm around her and her scent flooding over her make her feel safe, keep her heart from galloping in her chest. It would be so easy to trust her, like giving in to the tide, like falling. She knows she’s falling anyway, whether she wants to or not, maybe it’s OK to let go and let her head follow her heart, stop herself from tearing in two.

Lips brush against her hair and she tries to pretend that she _is_ safe, pretend for just a minute that none of this is happening.

“No you don’t. I’m going to help you.” Delphine’s words are so soft she could almost pretend she hasn’t heard them.

There’s a long pause between them. She’s so tired, it would be easy to fall asleep like this, to forget that she's a clone and trust Delphine to keep her safe just for one night. As the silence stretches, she feels the other woman’s fingers tracing along her ribs again. Careful, reverent, like she’s touching something sacred.

_How can I possibly believe that Delphine?_

_Because you feel it. It’s not a lie. It’s not possible._

She was right, she had felt it. Does feel it now. Is it possible to feel someone else’s love for you? Is that what this is? Or is she making it up because she wants it so badly? How can she be making it up when it’s beyond anything she’s ever imagined? People lie with their words but can they lie with their bodies? Can a kiss without emotion be as tender the one that lingers on her hairline? Can a cold embrace feel this warm?

“How?” She finds herself asking the question before she’s realized she was going to, her quivering voice betraying her.

_My forcefields are down. Don’t shoot._

Delphine seems as surprised by it as she is. “We’ll figure out what’s causing the respiratory illness,” she says slowly. “And then… and once we have that we can decide what to do next. We can take it one step at a time.”

The first step already feels like a momentous task, never mind that they’ll be working with material owned by a multinational corporation.

Material. Her blood. Her tissue. All of her, even her illness belongs to them. It isn’t just words embedded into each and every cell of her body, it’s a promise of ownership. These people have power and they think she’s theirs. They think Sarah and Alison are theirs. Kira is theirs. Beth was theirs. Her decision to step in front of that train had been written down and catalogued. Everything from her birth to her death was data, accumulated and stored for later use. It wasn’t a life, it was an experiment. Would Cosima’s death be another data point for them? Just information on how to fix a flawed design?

“Cosima…”

It isn’t until she feels Delphine’s hand move from her side to her cheek that she realizes she’s crying. She doesn’t want to start sobbing again so she remains silent and clenches her jaw, taking deep breaths in through her nose as Delphine carefully wipes away the tears.

“I cry after sex too sometimes,” she manages after a moment, smiling at Delphine’s quiet chuckle.

“Poor you,” she teases and Cosima feels her smile widen, her chest uncoiling.

They’re silent again and she lets Delphine finish clearing the tears from her face, anchored onto her even though there’s still a small part of her telling her she shouldn’t be. She pushes it down. If she doesn’t latch onto something she’s going to be swept away. And… more than that… she _wants_ that something to be Delphine.

“You’ll help me?” she whispers.

Delphine has settled into a steady rhythm, stroking the backs of her fingers down her cheek and it’s all Cosima can do to keep her eyes open. She still doesn’t know if she trusts her but she thinks she’s probably already in love with her.

“Just tell me what you need,” Delphine offers. It sounds like a promise.

_I’m so tired._

“Stay.”

“OK.” Her answer is instant, far more confident than Cosima feels.  

 Delphine’s hand drops away from her face, holding her steady under her arm again. She’s warm and soft but she feels stronger than she looks, holds onto her like she’s something precious. It doesn’t make sense to feel safer this way. Even if she’s decided to believe that Delphine cares about her, that she wants to protect her, it doesn’t make sense that she can.  They’re both vulnerable, both so small compared to the accumulating danger, but her heart and her head aren’t aligned and she decides to listen to her heart instead.

_I am safe in your arms. I can rest here. Just for tonight._

She falls asleep believing that she’s tucked away, wrapped in a stolen world beyond where anyone can hurt her. And Delphine watches over her the whole night through.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing these two but I love them so much, I really enjoyed this. I might write a sequel if I have time :)
> 
> Thanks for reading :D


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